Dwelling Within The Darkness
by Arkadius31
Summary: This is a story that took me a year to write. I took a long break from writing. During this break i actually began to read novels. I read The Eyes Of The Dragon, which opened up my eyes. I began reading and you can tell my writing improved in the middle o


1

Intro

What is insanity? Is it something that is brought on by traumatic events or is it brought on by slow chiseling by something irritating? Or is it a dark emotion dwelling in the bleak recesses of the human psyche?

What ever it may be it has ruined countless wonderful minds. It corrupts the thinking process until...

Until the only thing you have left in your life is you , and your paranoia. No matter what you think, it is beside the fact that this man experienced something beyond insanity.

1

Every child has a dream growing up. This dream is to become something great. When a child matures and finally makes it through college and starts life they realizes something. Life sucks and there is nothing you can do about it. Their life passes by and they have given up trying to become a veterinarian, or astronaut, or race car driver.

Their life is now just a filler. What kind of filler you may ask? A filler of a cubical. A filler of a seller for a buyer. To fill in the void of someone who has escaped the system. It's all very depressing but it's the truth.

Now many would say this isn't true. That they could have studied in school. That they could change their fate. Well fate is an inevitability. You can not change it. You are predestined to fail. Of course, few may succeed.

2

Now this is where my story begins. This was constantly at the back of one man's mind. Slowly digging and etching at the wall of his sanity. He was considered normal amongst co-workers. He celebrated holidays. He called his parents. He paid this taxes. He had a little sister that he loved.

The thought disturbing his inner peace was as simple as one word. Mortality.

The thought that your life is wasting away. That you will live out the rest of your life in a cubical.

When you lay in your bed, during your final minutes. Your family is there. You think, "where did my life go." The rest I leave to your imagination.

3

This man was known as Milo. One day he was sitting typing away at his computer in his office building. The smell of cheap suits and even cheaper personalities filled the air.

People talk amongst themselves at the water tank. The view of the beautiful tree outside the window is blocked by the gray bleakness of the cubical in his face.

Milo was just about finished. He was shutting down his computer when he heard a slam on the keyboard next to him. He peeked over the wall of this cubical and saw his co-worker with his face flat down on the keyboard. Many people thought that he was fed up and irritated and let him be. Milo got up and left.

4

The next morning Milo arrived at his company building to find someone parked in his spot. Again. The parking lot was completely full. After driving around in this parking lot for thirty minutes trying to find a spot he drove a mile down the street to the local coffee shop to park.

Milo ran to work with his morning coffee in hand. He knew the coffee was going to spill, but the thought was drowned out by an even bigger thought that he was going to be late.

He began to run and almost immediately, his coffee spilled over his arm and perfect white work shirt. The coffee burned through his skin right to his very soul. He ripped his shirt off his back before he realized that he was standing in the middle of the street. Oblivious to the traffic he continued to stand there. A trucker, who in his big rig of power, did not see Milo. Milo was also oblivious to the trucker. The trucker zoomed passed Milo at fifty miles an hour and missed him by an inch. Milo had dove out of the way and saved his life by a millisecond. His coffee soaked shirt was wet, but he put it back on anyway. Now you're thinking, he's crazy, he was almost just killed! He should go home an take the rest of the day off!

Milo did not have this luxury. His employer said that if he missed one more day of work, no mater the cause, he could be fired without mercy.

5

Milo patted his shirt and straightened his tie and trudged into the building. The large security guard stopped him as Milo passed. "Wow! You look like crap!" Milo ignored him and the guard chuckled as Milo continued on.

He walked into the first floor office and was greeted by his co-workers. His hair was jumbled and his shirt was soaked, so he just took the greetings as he continued.

As he approached his desk he saw that the man next to him was in the same clothes as yesterday and in the same position. Matter of fact the screen had not changed either. He approached him and felt for a pulse. There was none. Milo screamed through the office for help and he was quickly answered.

The ambulance arrived in a few short minutes. The paramedics explained what happened to him. The man was quite obese and had a heart condition. It turns out that the poor man had a short but powerful stroke and died on the spot.

6

Milo had to sit the rest of the day thinking about the poor man whose life had ended so abruptly. What disturbed him even more was that no one knew he was dead. He sat there lifeless and decomposing.

The day churned in Milo's mind like a cockroach in a butter mixer. Tainting it and turning it bitter. During this time his mind changed, and a fear deep inside Milo's mind was unleashed and plagued his unconscious thoughts. Milo accomplished nothing that day. He sat at his desk and thought about nothing and yet about everything. He didn't even turn on his computer.

Late into the evening he finally left. The coffee had never dried but started to rot and turn to mildew as it set on his body. There were few people left in his office when he left. A lone window hung next to the door exiting the office in to the lobby. Milo always dreaded passing this window.

A childhood horror of his was to look outside his small kitchen window and see a face staring back.

Milo knew that there would never be a face looking back but, it was a fear. Milo passed the window and looked. He never wanted to look but his neck always forced his head to turn.

A figure was standing in the parking lot. A dark figure, darker than the blackest coal, darker than the night. This figure's posture and aura froze Milo in his place. It was as if his soul was snatched from his body and he was left to rot. It was roughly six feet tall.

The figure left Milo's line of sight. Minutes later Milo gained the courage to move. He walked through the dimly lit lobby. A single pot light hung from the ceiling illuminating the secretary's desk.

The guard caught a whiff of him as he passed the secretary's desk and towards the door. "Damn boy, you stink" Milo took the brutal honesty and continued to walk.

7

He was reluctant to go through the parking lot. It was empty now and petrifying, Milo ran the mile to the coffee shop. He ran so fast that the world whizzed by him. When he reached the parking lot he was almost in tears. From running in the cold and from the sight that his car had been towed. The bus was the first thing that came to mind.

He hated taking the bus. They were filthy and putrid. What he hated more than the thought of having to take the bus was having to go another mile to the nearest bus stop.

Milo walked this mile because his skinny legs could barely move never the less run. He walked down the sidewalk. The street lamps above showered a light of refuge upon his head.

He continued to walk down the broken sidewalk. He saw the bus stop across the street. It filled him with promise. He walked through the darkness with his head down. An alleyway to the left chilled his spine. The openness of it crippled his ability to move. Once again his neck forced his head to look were his eyes did not want to. The figure. The evil figure his soul feared stood there mere feet away. It was clearer now. It wore a black trench coat and nothing else. The features of it's face were still not visible. Though the darkness of it's character was not exaggerated. A dark aura rose around the creature like heat that licked off the highway on a hot day, a dark flame.

An inhuman howl boomed from the creature's throat. Milo ran, as fast and as hard as he could. The bus, his sanctuary had arrived while he was frozen in time. The bus was leaving and so was Milo's hope.

The bus was long gone. Milo forgot about catching the bus and fled. He looked back and the figure was chasing after him. It moved inhumanly and twistingly. Milo raced for his life and out of pure fear.

8

He moved with fear as his fuel. He darted through alleyways, people's yards, and anywhere else he could run. He went past a house he recognized and knew he was close to home. He ran so hard and so long he had forgotten what he was running from. He stopped, he had to stop. He stooped over, holding his knees and turned to look. Whoever was chasing him had stopped.

His stomach turned over and over itself from running and from being scared more than he had ever been. He fell on the hard concrete sidewalk. He stared up at the street light that hung above his head. Blinding him from the starry sky.

Milo sat up and vomited, then passed out right there on the street.

9

"O god my head." Milo thought as he lay there on the ground. The street lamps that lined the street ceased spreading their serenity. It was morning right after life began and the looming dawn no longer existed. He rose and walked with a trudge. He had no idea which way he was heading. He just wanted to get home. He walked for an hour until he reached the comfort of his street. He lived in the suburbs surrounding the very edge of the city.

He moved with absolute sorrow. The little neighbor girl rode by him on her tricycle. Her parents were on the porch watching her ride the tricycle that she had gotten the other night."Hi Milo, why are you walking?" Normally her voice was comforting when he came home. She reminded him of his little sister.

But Milo was less than sane at this point. The little sweet neighbor girl was the creature, howling, and disturbing his soul. He pushed the tricycle over and ran to his house. He ran up the cold dewy steps of his porch and tried to open the door. It was locked. He couldn't think, all he wanted was to get into his house. His house keys sat in his pocket jingling furiously as he pounded on the door. He punched the door straight on with his knuckles. He screamed and howled, and sobbed as his knuckles bled onto the porch.

The parents of the girl ran over to help their daughter."Milo! He pushed me over! Then! Then he ran away!" She screamed and cried and tears rolled down her cheeks. Her father walked with the intention of beating the living daylights out of Milo. When he became angry a giant vein popped out of his head, Milo had seen it before when some kids had smashed his mailbox.

This vein was triple it's normal size as he marched across the street. "Milo! Why in the hell would you push my daughter over!" Milo turned pale skinned, but he didn't see his neighbor only the thing that chased him across town and now to his home. "Milo! Are you deaf! I'm talking to you!"

Milo heard nothing but the entity's inhuman scream. He backed against his front door and screamed and howled as tears flooded his face. He slowly fell against the door and stared into it's face as it wailed.

10

Harold slowly walked down the insane asylum halls. He whistled to himself quietly. He had only one dinner left to deliver then he could go home. The dinner rack clattered as the trays moved across the uneven tiles.

"Howdy Miss Harris." he said as he made his way into the dark room. There was a solitary lamp turned on resting on a night stand. "The voices weren't as loud today." she said staring out the window into the illuminated parking lot where only a few cars remained. She was sitting in a rocking chair with an old blanket draped over her.

Her old gray hair was frizzy and draped over her face.

"That's good!" He said with a reassuring tone. "Here's your dinner."

"I'm not very hungry."

"Miss Harris you have to eat something or.."

"I promise you that I will eat it in a little bit. Just leave it on the table." she said continuing to stare blankly out of the window.

He didn't feel like arguing with another loon today so he left the tray on the table. He made his way to the door. "Have a goodnight Miss Harris" he said. She slowly turned her head away from the window and nodded. She had a creepy grin on her face. Of course, Harold found every patient's grin creepy. She turned her head back to the window, then he closed the door and left.

Harold moved towards the elevators and pushed the down button. Well another exciting night of eating fast food and passing out in front of the computer, he thought as he waited for the elevator.

The elevator dinged and some nurses walked out. He scooted the empty dinner rack into the elevator.

11

The elevator arrived near the cafeteria. Harold started walking towards it when... "Hey Harold wait up!" He turned around and saw the guy that worked in the filing room. "God what is his name!" he thought to himself " Umm... hey... how are you!"

"Pretty good" the guy said as he ran up to him. "Hey, you want to see something?" he asked. "Well I have to drop this off then..." He thought of the rest of his exciting night and thought why not. "Yeah what is it?"

"Just stop by the filing room when your done. I'll show you then."

12

The filing room was stacked to the brim with filing cabinets. A new projector was installed in the ceiling. It looked as if it had never been used. "Hey you made it!" said the filing guy. Harold had no idea where his voice was coming from. "So what did you want to show me?" Harold asked... The lights turned off and the projector hummed to life. "This..." Said the disembodied voice. The screen turned on and the white board jumped to life.

The camera was focused on a man sitting in a straightjacket. "Subject number, 12356, name, Jones, Milo. Date, 3-7-06. Time, three forty seven p.m. Symptoms, extreme schizophrenia and unrationable violence." Said a voice behind the camera. " So Milo, what is wrong?"

Milo looked up. His black hair was dangling over his bloodshot eyes. The rings around his eyes were so deep you would think he was wearing eye-makeup. His eyes were like this because he had been crying constantly. His skin was incredibly pale.

As he looked up his eyes became big and watery. He opened his mouth and he began to scream and yell. "Get away from me! Dear god, just go away..." He shouted.

"Milo! What is wrong we are here to help" Screamed the voice. Milo began to shiver and writhe around in his chair. " Get the hell away! God damn leave me alone!"

"This is fruitless... give him some pills to help him sleep." "Alright" said another female voice. Presumidely a nurse. "End time, three fifty two " said the voice and the camera switched off.

13

Milo awoke with the smallest clue of where he was. This clue was the strait-jacket laced tightly around his body. The room was a blinding white. That god damn thing brought me here, he thought before he slipped back into unconsciousness

14

Milo always was a dreamer. "Your imagination is a wonderful thing", his mother would say. Whether it be about flying through the sky, or fighting pirates, his dreams were always in wonderful detail. Unfortunately the nightmares were just as detailed, if not more.

Death was always a painful thing for him in his sleep. When he was shot and blood would ooze from his wound he could feel it. Every pain and every ounce of oblivion. He would awake in a cold sweat, his mother often by his side. "The neighbors called you were screaming so loud!" his father would say from the doorway in a sarcastic tone. Behind his father always stood his sister. She stared at him and didn't understand why he screamed. She would stand there and tilt her head in the way a confused dog would. Milo loved his sister and often found her in his dreams.

Among all the dreamscapes his mind created he had his ultimate favorite. It was a nice sunny meadow. The perfect fluffy clouds soared through a painting like blue sky. Birds sang and the wind blew softly. It sat in a small patch of forest. Like it was cut out neatly just for this beautiful piece of heaven. The forest was so thick surrounding the meadow that you couldn't even see behind the many trees stretched around the parameter.

Within the meadow the grass was green and rich. Weeds were strangers to Milos paradise. Among all of the beautiful things in the meadow was the giant oak tree. It reached into the sky and shook hands with the clouds. A tire swing hung from it and rocked sweetly with the breeze. Milo spent hours of his nights in the tire, whistling, and talking to himself. He carved his name into the tree with a small pocket knife he had found in his pocket on one of his visits.

Milo hated the real world. The dream realm was so much more graceful and peaceful than reality. Unfortunately, when Milo talked to his friends about his wonderful dreams they would put him down and laugh, call him crazy and curse at him. Milo grew up and abandoned his dreams. He left the meadow, the clouds, the tree and his imagination, he locked it up in his mind. Until one day, his imagination was unlocked and resurfaced. This day was the one when he snapped, when he lost all touch with reality.

Just because you put something to the back of your head doesn't mean it's not there. It's there more than you think it is. When Milo shunned his wonderful dream world, it sat in his mind, sat in Milo's dark fluids marinading in insanity. When Milo's touch with reality began to weaken, this wonderful place began to loose what made it wonderful. With every traumatic event it became less of a haven and more of a hell. When Milo had absolutely no other place to go, he went to the place where he used to be safe from reality, but reality was already there.

15

The air smelled of rot. Milo's eyes felt heavy and unmovable. The air was poison filling his lungs with fire. Milo couldn't stand it. He shot up and stared into his world. The perfectly crafted world he constructed as a child. He couldn't believe his eyes. The long lost world he left behind was in front of him.

He cried and shrieked, when the shock of the discovery of his long lost world faded and the horror of what had happened to it hit him.

It was no longer the wonderful lush world that it once was. The grass was dead and dried with patches of mold. He got up and walked towards the tree. The tree was dead and a mere black shadow of it's former glory. The branches are twisted and shot out in different directions like black lightning. The grass crunched and popped underneath his feet. He touched the tree and pulled his hand from it quickly. The once sturdy tree was now wet and moldy. " O dear god where am I...", he said to himself quietly.

He knelt on the ground and felt it, crunchy and dead. Just like the rest of this once wonderful paradise. He looked towards the sky. It was scorched and red. It told of a storm coming, it's clouds dark and stretched sparingly through out the hellish horizon. The forest surrounding the meadow was even darker than it used to be. The occasional pair of eyes lit up and stared back at him. Milo laid down and closed his eyes. He tried to push the images from his consciousness. Unsuccessfully so, he laid there unable to fall asleep.

16

After giving up trying to sleep, he rose and began to pace back and forth. He tried to gain a little sanity as if none of what had happened to him. He remembered work and running from **it**. Then he was at home, then nothing. He tried so hard to make sense of his situation.

Nothing, absolutely nothing. At failure to compensate for his lack of sanity, he began to run instead of pace throughout the meadow. He ran and ran, until tears began to flow from his eyes. As he ran he tripped on a rock that was wedged in the earth. He fell and smashed his nose on the ground. Blood began to leak from his right nostril. He rose to his knees and wiped the blood from his upper lip. That is when he saw her.

. Her hair was jet black and draped over her face. No matter how dark her hair, her crimson eyes shown brightly through the entanglement.

He stood up and tried to move, but he was hypnotized by her eyes. She was so short, close to three feet. No shorter than his sister...his sister. That's when he finally realized who it was. It was his sister. But his sister was blonde and had blue eyes.

No, it's not her. Thought Milo. He let go of her arm. She cocked her head to one side like a confused dog. This was terrifying to Milo. He finally found the courage to move. Though he could move, it doesn't mean he ran. He began to slowly walk backwards towards the oak. He kept his eyes on her. Her horrific gaze followed him. When his back hit the oak tree he slumped towards the ground. She just stared at him.

17

He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else. Milo opened his eyes to see the girl right in front of him. Again her head tilted.

"They're going to kill you Milo." she said.

"What?"

Milo felt something cold and wet against his back. Then on his head. Then on his shoulder. He backed away from the tree and looked at it. Something was moving on it's surface. He couldn't quite make out what it was. He touched the tree to find that it was wet. Water was oozing out of the pours of the trees bark. He smelled his fingers where he had touched the tree.

It smelled horrible. Worse than the rest of the meadow.

And then it began to pour, there was already a few inches of the putrid liquid gathering around his feet.

"THEY'RE KILLING YOU!" she began to howl in an unholy shrill.

Unholy water collected around his knees. Milo knew it was impossible for water to collect that fast on the ground, even if it was pouring, but yet the water continued to climb at an unbelievable rate.

The water was up to his waist and steadily climbing. He couldn't see the girl anywhere. The waters putrid stink clogged his blood caked nostrils and made him gag.

18

The water was now up to Milo's face and flowing into his nostrils. He tried to jump out of the water to get a little bit of air in, but his leg was caught on something. He shoved his head under the water to try and see what had happened.

She was holding him down. Just standing there in the water, with her head tilted to the side.

"THEY'RE KILLING YOU!" she screamed.

"No please let me go!" He shouted.

"THEY'RE PULLING THE PLUG MILO!"

The water was well over his head now and flowing into his lungs.

Milo new that at this point that he was going to die. He stopped trying to get out of her grasp. He just went limp and took a big breath in. The water was warm flowing into his nose and filling his lungs. He began to gag and cough. Milo took another giant breath. He lost all of his strength and closed his eyes. In his last moment, he felt the little girl let go of his leg.

19

Her tears had made the bed sheet wet. "MILO THERE KILLING YOU! COME BACK!" Milo's little sister continued to shout and cry. Milo's mother and father were standing next to his bed side. His mother's face buried in his fathers shoulder. His father held his hand with a gentle touch. When he felt the hand go cold , he let go, and held his wife with both arms.

"MILO!" his sister continued to scream.

20

Out in the hallway stood Harold. He pondered the recent history of his life involving Milo. That video of Milo had disturbed him on a deep level. He felt sorry for him. Harold never felt anything for the patients at the clinic, never the less compassion for them. What got Harold to interact with Milo's case was when he found out that Milo had gone into a comma while in his cell, a product of the wrong medicine and his weak mental state, sending him into a deep into a permanent sleep.

The following day after watching the tape, Harold had visited Milo's hospital room. His family was there. Harold introduced himself and said he was sorry for what had happened. Over a few weeks Harold became close friends with Milo's family.

Harold continued to visit Milo every week for five years. Finally the doctor one day said Milo was having extreme brain activity but was still in the coma, and that the chances of him awakening were near impossible. His brain activity was that of a person who was awake and healthy."It's a medical anomaly, never has someone had so much brain activity and been so deep in a coma. The merciful thing to do is, is to take him off life support." he said.

When the time had come, Harold let them have their peace and decided to wait in the hall way outside the room. A few minutes later he came in. Harold walked in and stood at the front of Milo's bed, and remained silent. The ambience of the hospital outside the room was an ode to the death of Milo.

When darkness comes and seeps into your life, it is a constant. It infiltrates every piece of your life. It stains you, takes away your soul. Milo was a filler. Nothing more than a cog in the clock of society. A few days after the incident his company had already filled his cubical with another poor soul. Milo ruined his life with his paranoia, that doesn't mean you have to.


End file.
